Mediamum » Education

Why women in tech need to stop whining and start to nurture our own

mediamum — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 17:44:39 +0000

I’m a woman in tech and I’m struggling.

I’m not struggling because of my kids, or juggling home and work, or even because I have boobs instead of another single swinging appendage.

I’m struggling, dear friend, with the fact that many women in tech are focused on having little girl temper tantrums about not being represented in the mainstream, and because many men seem to want to aim the discussion around that.

I’m struggling because I’m hearing men say they can’t find women in tech to employ, or to be co-founders with.

I’m struggling because the only people who get any attention in the conversations about women in tech are ‘influential’ men who really have no idea about the truly fantastic parts of being a woman in tech. They only rant about the ‘issues’.

I’m struggling because it’s never been better for women in tech, and the future is amazing – yet all up-coming girls hear is how whining women are ‘fighting’ for acceptance. It’s neither a true representation of what is open to them, nor does it demonstrate the incredible talent that exists out there already. The women who are just doing it.

Focusing on perceived problems does not make someone want to join your parade, or hear you out. So those who whine create silos of pity parties that don’t move us forward.

Grace Hopper Vs Barbie

I recently attended the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Tech. It was fantastic. Why? Because it was a technology conference. A technology conference – that happened to have over 2000 women at it. And the only thing focused on how you looked was the ridiculous Barbie with a pink computer that’s somehow supposed to be bridging the gap.

Carol Bartz at the 2010 Grace Hopper Conference. Pic: Yodel Anecdotal, Flickr Creative Commons.

Seriously? I know Barbie wants to be more like me, but keeping the plastic pert boobs and a pink laptop is not going to cut it. Sorry, Mattel – Barbie is about as believable a computer scientist as Ken would be. I am anti-Barbie, and giving her a laptop is not going to change my opinion. Barbie certainly doesn’t help the Women in Tech issue – I am no more going to turn into Barbie because I’m a computer scientist than she is going to turn into me because she has a laptop. Additionally, she is a commercial product – that a company is making money out of. To highlight her as an icon for Women in Tech is ugly on many fronts. Why don’t we have a Grace Hopper Doll instead? Non representation of Women in Tech is not fixed with misrepresentation.

At the Grace Hopper Conference, there were myriad companies actively interviewing and recruiting smart women. In booths allocated for it. Stacks of them. That’s something I’ve never run across at any other conference. It’s a shame NOBODY (including those so-called ‘male supporters of the cause’) talked about that on blogs or media at all.

Why is it a big deal that women were being recruited?

It’s a big deal because it’s something girls need to know. If you’re a girl and you go into tech, you’ll have myriad job opportunities. Because male computer scientists are, let’s face it, a dime a dozen. There is no doubt the females bring something a little different to the table. (And it’s not a pink computer.)

I’m not going to engage in the ridiculous circular debate on the difference between women and men and whether one sex is better than the other. That’s not the point. Instead, you’ll note I said they’re a little different – and in the interests of creating technology that is created through iterations with alternative, diverse inputs to its production, it’s vital to have a good mix of people on your team.

The companies interviewing women at Grace Hopper saw that. They wanted our resume’s. They sat down and spoke with women and girls looking at a future in tech. Women and girls who were actively pursuing education at higher education institutions, and who had internships and experience. Or who wanted them.

If you’re a girl considering a career in tech, let me tell you, it’s probably the best career move you’ll ever make. The second thing you should do is not only attend small women conferences where the focus on problems are the main subject. Instead, go to the general (yes, male dominated) conferences. Introduce yourself to the startup community. Start putting yourself out there. Find your field and develop your skills, and get vocal. It will be appreciated by almost everyone. And those who don’t like it don’t count.

And forget about Barbie, conferences that create echo chambers of whining, and men who want to lead the discussion instead of be part of the conversation.

Be the change you want to see

If you’re a woman in tech, find some women you’d love to see speak at conferences and recommend them to the organizers. Stop going to women conferences *instead of* general conferences – at the very least, do both. And my challenge to you is to find a woman in tech or up-and-coming girl, to nominate for an award. There are lots out there. Or you know, you should nominate yourself. Tell other women how inspiring you think they are. Reach out and email a woman who has influenced you to be in tech – even if you have never actually met them. Write a blog post, and link to it here on what is fantastic about being a woman in tech.

And get a clue: Yes, there are dickheads out there. But they’re dicks to everyone, all the time. Not just to women.

It’s time.

Mummy’s back in graduate school

mediamum — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 15:27:11 +0000

During my Masters degree, I began looking into a PhD. I needed a wider range of opportunity and consideration. I wanted to look at media that is more than broadcast, and that doesn’t pretend to be objective.

So I ventured forth to the ATLAS building on campus and annoyed/asked people there for guidance and advice.

First I joined the Doctoral Seminar group at ATLAS. A 1-hour, 1-credit required class for ATLAS PhD students that is as much about giving them a sense of community as it is about content delivery. My idea behind it was to ‘suck it and see’ – I wanted to see what the students were like, what ATLAS was like, what their idea of ‘multidisciplinary’ really was, and how they all worked together to find out if it was a fit for me. In that class I met the amazing students who became good friends, and were interested in the same broad things as I was.

Me in pre-school. Amazing. So much, yet so little has changed.

Big kudos to Jill Van Matre, Associate Director at ATLAS who put up with me not knowing who I was; and the instructor for seminar that semester, Mark Winokur – both of whom cleared my acceptance even though I was not part of the PhD program and I was the first to ask them to take me. They took a risk. The type of risk that sees the future rather than the present. A good risk.

Through the rest of the Masters, I unliaterally took classes that would assist in my application for the ATLAS PhD program. I stressed over my GPA when many were past that phase. I was told repeatedly variations of ‘nobody’s ever gotten in from the SJMC before’, ‘funding is a real issue’, and even ‘ATLAS might not be taking any new PhD students at all, you know’.

I opened metaphorical doors and windows for funding opportunities and alternatives in case it didn’t work out. I stopped talking about my plans with people without vision, and I wrote a thesis on online communities. I ignored the fact we have no money.

I applied

ATLAS accepted four new PhD students this year. All four are women. I’m one.

I’m working in the ConnectivIT lab with my advisor, Leysia Palen. The lab looks at human centred computing (HCC). In particular, Project EPIC (Empowering People in Crisis) seeks to understand how people use technology when there are heightened areas of fear and personal loss at stake – in disasters such as Haiti, bushfires and floods. Far from just using social media to organise a Happy Hour meetup, I’ll be helping produce work that aids emergency personnel and individuals save lives.

However, there is math. But I have lots of friends who will help me understand it, or at least pour the wine when it all gets a little much. Statistics for Dummies is online. I found it

Lessons learned

This is just the beginning of this part of the journey, but I learned a lot in getting to this point. I thought you’d like to hear some things:

* Don’t look for reasons ‘why you should not do it’ – there is no need to look for those – everyone will throw them at you. There are plenty. Look inside for your own reasons ‘why you should do it’. There are fewer of them, and they might not make sense to some people, but they’re way more important.

* Listen to the warnings/negatives of everyone, and use them to prepare and plan for ways around issues. Be conscious of things like you have no money. Work out ways around the money thing. Clip coupons. Get used to free things. Don’t be too proud.

* Make strong connections. From the admin person through to the Dean. Everyone is important. It’s not strategic. It’s just being a nice human being. It will pay you back. Just don’t expect it to, and it will. (Does that make sense?)

* Don’t get angry. Many times people say you can’t. That’s because they’re not willing to. That’s okay. It doesn’t mean it’s the same for you.

* Finally, don’t worry about how you’ll manage next year (time, kids, money etc). Just eat that elephant a bite at a time, and worry about it as it happens. Every journey is different, and for women who wear so many hats, we are the essence of innovation. Keep stumbling forward.

* Smile, laugh and love every step. Lots. See the funny side. Sure, it shows you are a little bit crazy. Crazy’s good.

See student-focused New Venture Challenge startup finals at CU this Friday

mediamum — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 22:40:04 +0000

It has been my absolute privilege to be on the Executive Committee of the CU New Venture Challenge (CUNVC) for 2010.

The CUNVC is focused on providing entrepreneurial support, mentoring and cross-campus collaboration for startups that include students and faculty, across the University of Colorado.

The goal is to provide some real support and eliminate some of the smoke and mirrors involved in really giving a entrepreneurialism a go, no matter what field of study you are involved in. As a result, over 20 teams submitted final business plans this year, for companies ranging from high-tech startups through to outdoor recreation and music.

After months of fantastic workshops and crash courses, the semi-finalists are getting ready to compete on Thursday, and on Friday we are having a fantastic afternoon featuring our four top teams, who will be competing for the prize money.

The four finalists will be pitching to a panel consisting of venture capitalists, angel investors and serial entrepreneurs. The teams will be trying to win the prizemoney of:

First place, $6000

Second place, $3000

Third place, $2000

There will also be a special prize of $200 for the company deemed by the judges as their choice. The competition is going to be tough, and these teams are going to be well worth seeing. The best news is that the finals are open to the public. Join me on Friday 12 March, at 2pm at the ATLAS Building at CU (room 100) to see these finalists impress the judges.

Come along, and let them know how appreciated and important innovation and entrepreneurialism are.

For mommybloggers at Nestle, the medium was the message

mediamum — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 23:23:58 +0000

If you are unfamiliar with the Nestle Family incident on social media last year, there are myriad blog posts about it, as well as a single piece of mainstream traditional media coverage.

In a snapshot, Nestle brought a number of bloggers to the company’s headquarters in California from September 30-October 1, 2009, showing them the full range of its products, and using them as a focus group for the Nestle Family initiative. The bloggers began tweeting pro-Nestle messages that were not received well by some in the Twitter community. They tweeted back. Then ensued what has been called a “twitstorm”, as well as a plethora of blog posts that led to further debate and discussion.

An introduction to the research

Attendee bloggers were made aware of the complete range of Nestle-owned products, as were those at home.

I’ve begun reviewing the results of the survey I undertook during the twitstorm. Please Note: The purpose of this survey and my thesis is to investigate why people were so passionately reacting to each other, rather than to reignite debate. While I hold my own views, my thesis is focusing on the mommyblogger community, authority and political economy. I endeavour to treat all parties with respect at all times. To date, I believe this has been achieved.

Learning about our Twitter community

Importantly, most people completed the survey through the height of the twitstorm and I believe this led to their true feelings being expressed, rather than the more ‘politically correct’ responses you’d expect if they were reflecting on the storm. When asked what you learned about your Twitter community, this was the response:

SUMMARY
VALUE	COUNT	PERCENT %
I learned I like some of the people I follow even more	46	74%
I learned I do not like some of the people I follow	30	48%
I learned about etiquette on twitter	21	34%
I did not learn anything about other twitterers	7	11%

As you can see, most people affirmed their positive beliefs about their stream, but almost half of the respondents decided they did not actually like some of the people they followed. (We can probably assume they did like them before this.)

Additionally, when asked if they believed the Nestle event was a good thing for the attending bloggers to be a part of, this was the response:

SUMMARY
VALUE	COUNT	PERCENT %
I don’t know	24	39%
No	20	32%
Yes	15	24%
It made no difference	3	5%

These statistics indicate that 71%, or nearly three quarters, of respondents were either unsure or negative in their opinion of the value of the event for the bloggers who attended. When only one quarter of respondents thought attending the Nestle event was a good idea, red flags are raised for the community as well as Nestle.

Some commentary in the long form response boxes

On the #NestleFamily hashtag:

“I was disgusted to see the activists invading (use of the hashtag)”

“It was interesting to watch (the hashtag) be used by and for two completely opposing groups/ideas.”

And about the attendees:

“The event underscored the problem bloggers have in accepting corporate junkets that come with a PR hashtag, in that their ethics in attending and their PR activities on Twitter were publically challenged.”

“When blogger credibility is based on authenticity and voice, what happens to both when negative information about a corporation or brand is just a few links away and yet that information isn’t included in a blogger’s report?”

And finally, for this very short piece of introduction, I believe this respondent captured the essence of the questions that arise out of this event, and they are ones I will be seeking some indications of answers to as I progress in this research:

“There are the issues about what, exactly, are bloggers? Are they journalists or brand enthusiasts or community leaders or experts or what? Can you attend an event like this without having been said to represent the brand? And then there are the issues surrounding social media…is it rude to challenge someone’s public statements? Is it against etiquette to “crash” a hashtag? Why is a multi-billion dollar brand hosting a microsite with a twitter feed for an event without a single employee versed in Twitter?”

Thank you to everyone who responded to the survey. I am looking forward to outlining more of the responses in some further posts. If you would like to undergo a depth interview with me over the next month or so, please let me know. Also feel free to leave comments below. For the purposes of this research, anonymity is respected.

Islam and the media – without media.

mediamum — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 05:24:02 +0000

The Islam and the Media conference, held by the Center for Media, Religion and Culture at the University of Colorado at Boulder (January 7-10) was a huge success in bringing together leaders in thought and practise on religion and media. But you wouldn’t know it if you’d been watching mainstream media.
At a time in our history that international front pages and lead stories are obsessively dealing with some aspect of Islam, it’s interesting that of all the mainstream media reporters on religion who were invited to attend the conference or interview any of the delegates decided it was not enough of a priority. Surprising when the topic is hot, and when local media simply had to come to campus on any one of three days (including the weekend) to talk with any of the world leading scholars (including Elizabeth Poole) on Islam and its representation in popular and digital media.
If I were a reporter with a beat, I’d not only be sure to be on top of the content, but the least I’d be doing is reporting on key influencers in my area.
Perhaps if there had been some events at the conference that reinforced the moral panics international media have aligned with Islam, we would have seen a greater presence of professional reporters – but they would have been reporting after the fact, by their own choice.
Should religion reporters have reported on this conference? Attended it to find out how their media is conveying ideas and representations of Islam?

Image courtesy Library of Congress

Unveiling the panic of Islamaphobia? Or does it serve traditional media to maintain and pander to the ignorance of the people who pay for what might or might not be newsworthy?

Join me at the 2010 Mom 2.0 Summit

mediamum — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 05:07:57 +0000

I’m very excited to be attending the Mom 2.0 Summit in Houston, Texas from February 18-20. The schedule of events is chock full of sessions that I want to learn from.

I think this conference is one which really does enlighten all parties – marketers and ‘moms’ – on how the other operates. I regularly hear complaints from both sides – it seems there are as many different expectations as there are companies and bloggers. I’m looking forward to seeing both sides have an opportunity to describe their experiences, and make recommendations that lead to even better relationships.

I’m even more excited to have been invited to share my insights as part of the panel for the f first professional session of the conference. In the session we’ll be discussing setting a strategic path for your blog through creating a marketing plan and SMART objectives that are both trackable and achievable. I’ve been thinking for about a month now on exactly the best way for me to support the session with additional materials – and I’m considering doing an e-workbook for attendees to use in creating their own marketing plans.

I’m about to plan all my travel arrangements and start thinking about what I’d like to achieve from this conference. I have had a number of women tell me that Mom 2.0 was the best conference they’d attended last year. I firmly believe that with the schedule and talented women I’m lucky to be surrounded by leading these sessions, and the amazing array of women and companies who will be attending, 2010 will be just as successful.

I’m looking forward to getting along and meeting all the exciting, inspiring women who will be there. Will I get to meet you?

I'll pay for content when there's Twitter with penguins

mediamum — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:57:27 +0000

Usually, I don’t consciously pay for content. I say ‘consciously’ because if I click on a link and there’s a paywall, I won’t do it. I also don’t subscribe to any newspapers or magazines (online or in ‘dead tree’ format). Basically, the quality of the content I’m seeing doesn’t make me want to pay for more of it.

Mr Murdoch does have the right idea. Getting people to pay for content is definitely a way forward. But News Corp. is missing the biggest opportunity they have. It’s a global organization, and while about 1% of their content producers are the best in the world, they are still.. the best. Why doesn’t News identify that globally based 1%, and put it in a paid-for format? At a really, really high price?

If Mr Murdoch thinks that I, or anyone else, will pay for the other 99% of his writers who are complete crap, then he’s mistaken. I’d rather read the far more professional blogs, with the diversity of opinions and transparency News cannot offer.

After freelancing, creating content for a few different publishers it also appears that organizations don’t like to pay their contributors. Waiting six months for a payment on any work done is not a viable business model. I don’t know why some people think it’s all hunky dory. And it’s been this way for many years.

So I don’t pay for content, and I’m wary of accepting any freelance job at all these days. Because I simply don’t like waiting to be paid when my time is better spent on more pressing things.

But my kids? That’s another thing entirely. I currently pay for three social network memberships. And while I’m a member of about 15 social networks, none of these payments are for me. They’re for my kids. My kids totally expect to pay to get access to information, community and technology. They’re growing up with a pay-for-it frame of mind. At the moment it’s a mum-pay-for-it model, and I’m fine with that because the quality of content accessed by my kids on networks like Club Penguin is really worth $5.95 a month. It’s a vibrant community, with great quality stuff. If organizations continue to treat them this way, by the time they’re my age they’ll be paying for content, and believing they should.

But a key part will be getting rid of the 99% of crap for adults and creating something worth subscribing to. We need a Club Penguin for grown ups.

Sidebar: For the “something shiny” HCI people: Twitter with penguins. Now we’re talking.

The three steps to being influential in social media

mediamum — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 14:10:41 +0000

To be influential in social media takes effort. It doesn’t just happen. You can’t buy it. It’s not advertising.

So if that’s what it’s not, how can organizations and people get to be really influential? Here are the steps to influence. When you and your brand get it right, that’s when you get to influence others.

Find Relevance

Your first mission is to produce content that is relevant to the people you’re seeking to influence. That sounds pretty obvious, but so many people and companies don’t really have a great snapshot of their target market. They’ve spent so long with basic demographics that are ballpark indications of who their market is that they’ve lost touch with the real personalities of these people. In social media we’re no longer talking about eyeballs, or about mass market publications that look after great big segments of a market. Instead, you’re looking at individuals. Yes, those individuals tend to move in packs – they’re communities of similar people. And those communities have some people with bigger voices. But that can change in an instant, and one bigger voice doesn’t mean they influence everyone in that community. They are individuals first and they are all powerful. Some will love your brand, others won’t care much, and others might detest your brand. Spend some time working out who they are, what their interests are, and what they really think before even trying to produce content for them. Be relevant.

Find Resonance

Readers of my blog know I love to talk about resonance. You can create all the good quality content in the world but if it’s not hitting the mark and connecting with people in a solid way, you’re not getting social media right. It’s a massive error to think that simply creating good content leads directly to influence. You need more than that. You need to produce content that makes people talk about you. Retweet you. Post the article to their Facebook account or write about it on their blog. When they do that, they’re demonstrating their personal involvement with your content, and that’s what you want. Not just for the eyeballs to hit your page, but for the message to be meaningful to them. To the extent that they’ll tie their name to it and go talk about it elsewhere.

You need to create resonance.

One caveat here, particularly for brands and companies running them, is to be aware that to achieve resonance you need to really understand your audience, and remember everything you say reflects on your brand. I wasn’t kidding before with step one. These people have opinions, are smart, engaged and want to work with others in this space – but don’t think you can control the conversation or give half-assed engagement or try to pretend you’re not the person representing the brand, even if that’s not your intention. A great example is the furore surrounding Nestle right now on Twitter. The good news is that while you’ll get called out for crappy behavior of any kind, the social media community wants you to get better. They will celebrate with you when you do, and they’ll be your loudest proponent. If you really listen, and really work with the community instead of trying to manipulate it you’ll get there and find resonance (I’m kinda hoping Nestle eventually realises that.)

Nirvana – Influence

When you’ve achieved the first two steps, that’s when you can seek to be influential. And you’ll see results. You can invite people to play with your new stuff and be confident that because you have resonance with them, the brand will be welcomed enough for people to want to try it out.You can be a thought leader. You can gain a few minutes of peoples’ time to talk about stuff, and they’ll really listen to you.

It doesn’t matter if you have a personal brand or the biggest brand on the planet. Everyone wants to be influential. Using social media is a great way to discover influence through resonance with a target audience you may have forgotten. Rediscover people. Don’t treat social media like other forms of promotion. It still sits in your toolkit, along with other areas like advertising and sales promotion, but it works differently. Get it right and you’ll find the opportunities you are looking for, with the people who matter most.

Disrupting the barriers of media in the 21st Century

mediamum — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 23:38:21 +0000

This pre-internet installation was and remains a vital consideration in the future of media. It has been supposed for a long time that communication and media technologies allowed people who already knew each other to improve existing relationships. Alternatively, broadcast media were used to send corporate-owned messages to the ‘masses’. There has been very little in the understanding of communities and how they are built and morph through media. To date, due to the expense of entry to creating content for media communication technology, most middle class people have been limited to the telephone – and that form is one-to-one rather than the one-to-many formats offered by social media. This installation’s first day shows how people who did not know each other were able to create conversations and relationships – even for a short time.

People in the video respond a certain way because they realize people in the other location can actually see them. This created an ‘event’. In the 21^st Century, when everything that happens in public locations could readily and easily be posted to the web, are we seeing a change in everyday public behaviors due to the fact that we are aware, more than ever before, that someone might be posting our actions? From music concerts to classrooms, from traffic accidents to natural environments, people are creating ‘events’. The greater questions are how have we as a community become the public entity we are creating, and what impact does this have on how we relate to each other. What has made people immediately reach for their cell phone to take a picture when something happens? This is a stage of history we’ve never faced before.

While we have come through an era where “the medium is the message,” we have moved on from this. The medium is still the technology. The message today is found in the resonance of community. One is not the other. In fact, the irony as stated by Steve Harrison in his essay on this particular video (found in HCI Remixed), is key. Separation does in fact, invite a connection. If we believe that human beings seek resonance with each other, eliminating some of the barriers to finding that resonance through disrupting the accepted norms of relationships and community will in fact deliver us to new ways of ‘seeing’ each other. Through these new ways of discovering resonance we will be able to grow an international array of communities. The international would relate not just to geographical space, but also class space. We have a media which will offer everyone an opportunity to find resonance of community with the homeless, the traditional-media famous, and their neighbor.

Do online communities pretend to care?

mediamum — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 01:06:54 +0000

I am fortunate enough to have been invited to attend IMSI, the Invitational Masters Student Invitational, to be held at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, the weekend of October 16-18. Given Rutgers received over 100 applications, to be one of the 25 students invited to discuss their current research and proposed dissertation topic with Rutgers faculty, existing doctoral candidates, and other invitees is a privelege and real highlight of my academic career.

In my application I had to submit an existing paper to demonstrate my research. The paper I chose to submit was on identity work performed on twitter through the use of language and sentence structure. This paper looked at how people create and present an identity of themselves on Twitter, primarily through the use of @ replies, hashtags and retweets. While it’s a decent paper, for Rutgers I’d like to extend it to look at this identity work, and how the Twitter community sees its need to create an identity of concern in crisis and tragedy. This is where I’m headed.

Online communities and crisis

We’ve all seen media stories of tragic events, and how people are affected by them – and how they’ve gathered together online as a result. While sites exist to create online memorials, sometimes it crosses over and a personal fun page is morphed into a place for others to gather when they’ve passed on. On Twitter, I have personally witnessed multiple occasions where someone has ended up tweeting their own tragic events. The death of a wife. The death of a child. I wonder what would have happened if Twitter had been so commonplace during larger tragedies such as the Virginia Tech shootings.

I have watched the online community gather to provide concern and support to individuals directly affected by tragedy. It is this kind of resonance that led me to undertake a small content analysis on the tweets associated with the Australian bushfires last year. I wanted to find out who was tweeting about it? How were they involved? What were they saying and why?

The paper was a very small, very specific analysis in which I was surprised to discover that two thirds of people who twittered during the high point of the bushfire-related tweets were located nowhere near the tragedy. In fact, they were overseas. None of them knew people directly affected. And what were they saying?

Apart from retweeting basic information, the majority of people wanted to know how could they help?

Seeking triangulation? I’m not quite there yet…

Last week I attended the presentation of Leysia Palen’s to-date work in crisis informatics at CU. And the data appears to be reflected in her unit’s research (in particular, on the American-located Red River floods) as well. Exactly the same percentage – two thirds of people tweeting during a disaster are not directly involved.

So, is this real?

I hear a lot of people who doubt the friendships experienced in online communities. They say “how do you know they’re real?”

Now, of course they’re not doubting that the person tweeting is human (sometimes now, however, that presents an entirely different issue), but they are definitely doubting their authenticity. How do you know someone is really concerned about you if you’ve never met them face to face before? And it’s a really good question.

The Karen Walker factor

Karen Walker was a special character who found life, and resonance with many in the hit sitcom, Will and Grace. While the show has had its day, there are many Walker moments that still hit the nail on the head.It is what is swimming in my head as I plan my paper for the Rutgers Invitational.

One of these is in an episode when Will and Grace are not talking (after a massive argument in which Will tells Grace to move out, which I swear was one of the strongest bits of acting on television I’ve seen). In chatting with Jack about how to get Will and Grace to talk again, she firstly says, “pretend to think, pretend to think.” She then follows it with “Pretend to care, pretend to care.” Of course Karen does care. She’s just conscious of the need to appear to care as well. Plus it’s funny.

So here I am:

* Are people who offer support in online communities ‘pretending to care’?

* Is the expressed concern a demonstration of identity work that gains them favour and positions them as caring individuals you’d want to have as a friend?

* How does the caring from the community affect the person experiencing tragedy?

Do you have any experience of this? Would you be willing to undergo an interview for my research? What do you believe is true?

My sincere thanks goes to the SJMC at CU, without the support of which I wouldn’t be able to conduct any of my research and also in particular to Dean Paul Voakes who saw fit to support my application with a letter of recommendation that I never saw, but am convinced was highly influential in my acceptance.

Don't think influence, think resonance

mediamum — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 02:08:36 +0000

The new buzzword in social media appears to be Influence. According to conferences, some marketers it’s what people want. To influence others.

This is a mistake. It demonstrates a very shallow, one-sided view.

(cartoon from xkcd.com)

Talk to most people in social media for example, and they’ll tell you the truth. What they’re doing is looking for, and responding to resonance, not influence.

What all of us seek in social media is Resonance.

The influence part happens afterwards.

In social media, you can’t influence someone unless they want to be influenced.

Guess what… if traditional media had understood the need to find real resonance with its market, it wouldn’t be in the situation it is today.

Resonance. It’s what creates meaning. Just like the rice here.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nO0bSSXmr1A&feature=related#watch-main-area]

Personal brands and the Unique Selling Proposition

mediamum — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 22:55:16 +0000

After the Creative Revolution in the 1960s, advertisers began to try to find communications that gave people a reason to buy their product. That developed into the Unique Selling Proposition or USP – the ‘thing’ that makes people choose your product. It still applies. Every successful product has a USP. Over time this went from features to benefits. You’ve probably heard ‘sell the sizzle, not the steak’. Sell the benefit. In a marketplace full of things that do the same operation, to stand out from the crowd you need to have something that sets you apart. And that’s your sizzle.

The USP for M&Ms: Melts in your mouth, not in your hand.

For example, there are heaps of dishwashers. They all wash dishes. It’s hard to be known as a product, based purely on that. It doesn’t set them apart. But sizzling benefits like being ‘whisper quiet’, or ‘economical’, or ‘green’ will make the difference for the consumer in a target market. Make no mistake, these benefits might be common to more than one product – but the first to market with it as a sizzling quality, to make it a USP, will get to own that benefit.

In the 21st Century, if you are one of the many who believes you, personally, are a brand (do a search on personal branding and you’ll see what I mean) then the USP has never had more importance.

How do you sell yourself? What’s the one thing about you that makes you different and desirable? What’s your USP?

There are no doubt lots of people who can fulfill a good bit of your job. Code a website, write a story, answer a phone, collect a debt, change a nappy.

But there needs to be something about the way you do it that sets you apart. What’s your USP? Too many people don’t easily identify the things that they’re really great at – better, in fact, than most others. It’s time you did. What’s your sizzle?

It’s harder for women to get to recognise their sizzle than for men.

Research has shown women, in particular, are bad at identifying the things they’re really great at. A female A grade math student will say she’s “okay at math”. Whereas a B or C grade male math student is more likely to say they’re “great at math.”

It’s ironic that in the 1960s, Mary Wells, the first woman to own an advertising agency, was the first to think of branding beyond an obvious USP in the four walls of advertising.

Mary Wells, image from www.wowowow.com. Their photo essay on Mary Wells is great.

She extended the branding across all the marketing effort, so the flavour of that USP was on the lips of everyone experiencing any part of it. Ms Wells decided communication was something that happened all across the marketing effort. Of course she was right. The first step is identifying your USP. The second is to celebrate it across everything you do. The way you behave, dress, communicate. It’s all your own brand.

A good number of mommybloggers have accomplished this. They can sell their sizzle. But far too many very deserving women are not doing it.

Grab your sizzle, sell it up. Because you’re awesome. You have a USP. Time to identify it, claim it, and use it.

Using social media in education

mediamum — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 04:16:56 +0000

Spending the last two days at the Colorado Learning and Teaching with Technology Conference was a wonderful, enriching experience. As you’d expect from a conference that has a wealth of great sessions, I’ve come away invigorated and inspired to analyse, assess and further integrate additional teaching and assessment strategies – even though I was a co-presenter at the conference too!

I believe these conferences are vital. To get educators, particularly at tertiary level, to consider the way they deliver both content and assessment, really look at whether it’s working well or not and how they can improve, is a real focus of what I want to achieve both personally and professionally.

It was such a great experience to be able to focus in a workshop on how to use Twitter, in particular, in a tertiary education environment.

Step One

Before considering the technology, step back and think about your desired learning outcomes and competencies you need to deliver in your course.

Step Two

Consider how you deliver those things now. What works, what doesn’t? What learning styles are being addressed? I really think in a classroom environment we’re so used to seeing all the students enter and sit at the back of the room, and the same 5 people participate in discussions, that we’ve stopped realising that it’s problematic. Stopped looking at ways to improve it. Disconnect and think of what your ideal is.

Step Three

Think of things you can change to meet those different inadequacies. To improve your practice. Some of these may well include using social media to foster inclusive and participatory discussions, the elimination of people thinking they’re asking ‘dumb questions’ and resonance between students and educators.

Step Four

Gently lead your students into associating social media with an education environment. You’re going to be nervous in trying something new. They are going to be nervous that you’ll encroach their ‘personal’ domain. (Damn it, what’s next, friending them on Facebook?) While for many students, you accept there’s a number of people who will just not get involved, for the students, there are a number of them who are just expecting to fail. Simple. Think back to the most effective educators in your lives. These are the people who made a real impact. And typically, they’re the ones who tried something a little different. Who cared just that bit more. Why not be that educator to these students?

Step Five

When you’ve identified the areas of practice and efficiencies you’d like to change, focus on the tools that will help that happen. And then test it out. Invite students to take a journey with you. I bet that if you’re honest and let them know you’re testing something out for the first time, to try and get the content more engaging and interactive and anything else you’ve identified as problematic, most of them will willingly take the journey with you from the very start.

Remember:

A. Every semester is a new beginning. You don’t have to let the legacy of the previous one linger. But you should celebrate the improvements you made.

B. Every semester allows you to learn as an educator, and be even better.

C. Every student wants to learn. They’re in your class for a reason. Some don’t know what they’re going to learn. Maybe it’s just that they can. And that’s okay.

D. Get honest: Believe you can be better. Believe alternative strategies can actually work. Recognise your teaching practice wasn’t perfect to begin with.

E. Get ready to be important to your students. An educator that they remember for the rest of their lives.

Good luck this semester!

A win for the little guy? Ashton Kutcher plays tag with CNN.

mediamum — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 22:58:42 +0000

By now even your grandma knows about the race to a million. Ashton Kutcher, old-media celebrity turned digital insider with various multimedia projects and Twitter groover challenged CNN to a race to a million followers on Twitter.

And after a nice little campaign, last night he won.

It was really fun to see the video of him crossing the victory line. He was really, truly excited. That’s impressive.

What’s more impressive is that Ashton (I can call him by his first name, ‘cos you know… we’re both Twitter sluts ) decided to use the opportunity to do two things:

First, promote the charitable cause (Malaria No More). He got a bank cheque made out in readiness for the win, and showed it up close on U-stream. He is knowledgeable and focused on his charitable work. (Granted, in his excitement over his win the splashing of champagne on a bank cheque for that amount of money is a little… well… off).

Secondly, and more importantly, he made the race into a statement about the democratization of media. About the power of the people. About ‘big media’ no longer determining who gets attention. Ashton repeatedly says that the revolution is happening. That we can change the world. We own the tools to create the content, consume the content and connect with each other. Anyone who can get to a computer with the internet is playing in the same playground as CNN – and they no longer have a guaranteed audience. And old media can just *suck it*.

Some naysayers and skeptics doubt that Ashton truly represents the ‘little guy’ in this equation (after all he’s a movie star right?). For example, Mark Glaser, otherwise known as @Mediatwit said: “This was NOT about the little guy at all. It was about a celeb getting little guys to follow him. If a real nobody got 1m that would be big.”

What Mark’s missed is that a key part of Ashton’s victory rant was his comment that ‘Hey, you can unfollow me. And that’s cool.’ Ashton gets that’s what happens. That’s what this is about. Six hours after he logged off last night, he was recording a segment on Oprah and said these things again … and again. Let’s not forget he’s also always talking directly to the Twitterers sending him messages. He’s authentic, transparent, on the ball and insightful. (So’s his dearly devoted wife, but that’s another post.)

So while the focus on playing tag for Followers on Twitter gives a bad impression and certainly doesn’t reflect the overall scheme of things in social media, the goal and opportunity for further influence created by Ashton and the point he’s made are undoubtedly positive in ways no other old media celebrity could achieve. He’s gained my respect, and the respect of other commentators. And I’ve never actually been a fan of his at all.

Now if only he’d teach all those other celebrities. You know the ones who need to get rid of their clueless PR hoons and tweet real conversations with other real people …. Are you listening Hugh Jackman? Oh that’s right… no you’re not.

What kind of Twitter identity do you seek?

mediamum — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 23:31:01 +0000

There are some very interesting psychological theories used in Marketing and Business which explain why people behave the way they do. Put simply, people buy different brands and products to fulfill external and internal needs. These needs reflect their sense of self. And people can generally be placed in one of three categories:

1. Affiliation needs – people who primarily want to ‘belong’. For example, think of teenagers and their need to buy the latest fad.

2. Leadership needs – people who want to be seen as innovators and want to be seen as cutting edge. A good example is all those people looking for the latest and greatest new phone!

3. Achievement needs – people who buy things to demonstrate they’ve ‘made it’. Often, buying that sportscar or a First Class plane ticket fulfills that need.

My current research on discourse analysis on Twitter suggests you can identify people working to fulfill these same needs on Twitter! With just text to convey how we want to be seen by everyone, the things we decide to Tweet and whom we tweet with demonstrates us ‘working’ to fulfill one of these needs.

Someone with an affiliation need on Twitter will use lots of hashtags. Ways of belonging. They will identify themselves as part of popular movements on Twitter. They want to be part of a particular crowd. Mommy bloggers. Lots of RTs and @ conversations with people they want to be associated with.

Someone with a leadership need will probably not ‘life stream’. Instead they’ll stay on one topic and tweet links to specific cutting edge stuff in their field. They will talk with just about anyone as long as it’s on the topic they want to be seen as a leader in. They don’t stray from that path. It’s like they’re almost the Twitter expert on a particular subject.

Finally, someone with an achievement need will want to be recognised as having ‘made it’. These, I claim, are the type of people who un-follow bulk numbers of people so they can appear accomplished. They’re more likely to be focused on follower numbers than anything else. They might life stream about their accomplished lives, and even lead calls to donate to ’people less fortunate’, to further identify their separateness from them.

The way we behave on Twitter reflect identity work where we want to be seen by the community as one of these types of people.

What Twitterers can you think of that fits one of these categories? Where do you fit?

Resonance, Not Reach

mediamum — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 17:29:40 +0000

Creating a brand LoveMark in the 21st century has never been easier. Yet, the concept seems to be alien to so many companies.

Many brands think they’ve got a loyal following. But what they really have is passive brand loyalty. People who buy the product all the time, but don’t really have a loving, committed relationship. It’s a marriage of convenience. Your brand is not a LoveMark. And you’re fooling yourself if you think those sales figures are just going to continue without putting some work into your relationship. There’s always something shiny coming around the corner, or a challenge to be met and if your customers aren’t willing to go the extra mile for you, then you’re DOA.

Advertising used to be about reaching as many people as possible with your message. Reach. CPM. It was all about how many eyeballs you could get to. And that’s what brands thought would bring them some sort of relationship with people. But it’s a flawed system that doesn’t work. The old “50% of my advertising works and 50% doesn’t – but I don’t know which 50% is which” simply isn’t good enough for today’s effective marketer, working on a slashed budget and still needing to demonstrate real ROI.

I put it to you that Reach is not what you should be focused on (in fact, it was never the real focus, but we got lost because that’s all traditional media could measure and create sales on). It’s not primarily about Reach.

It’s all about Resonance.

To explain Resonance to students, I say it’s like hitting the sweet spot on a tennis racquet. You get the best power, best direction, best result – with ‘just-right’ input. Hitting a ball with the sweet spot on the tennis racquet is Resonance. And the perfect chord on a guitar is Resonance.

Social media offer brands an opportunity to create a LoveMark because they offer a capacity for Resonance that traditional formats, focused on CPM, could never offer. CPM tries to achieve Resonance by throwing lots and lots of tennis balls at a racquet, and hoping one or two make the sweet spot. There’s stacks of lost message. And stacks of lost money.

Resonance in advertising is all about making your product the perfect and only fit that the buyer can see for them. In fact, it shows the product as being built specifically for them. It’s all about the individual consumer. It’s not about how many thousands of people you can get your message to. It’s about getting it to the right people.

By using social media as a tool, Resonance happens when your brand speaks to people online. Personally. As part of a conversation. When you’re speaking to someone it says you care about them. How do you think rock stars get so successful? Name any teen heart-throb: David Cassidy, Robbie Williams, Jesse McCartney, even (good grief) the Jonas Bros make girls feel they are performing just for them. They sing songs that say “hey, I’m so lonely and you could be the one.” Rock stars who do that have Resonance down pat. And now it’s easy for any brand to do the same.

Social media offers brands the opportunity to become a LoveMark for people and eliminate a great portion of the passive brand loyalty that they’re built on. Good brands, like Zappos.com are in the space, making personal relationships with people a priority. As time goes on, I hope more companies rediscover the importance of Resonance over Reach. If you build resonance with one person, then they’ll be singing your praises day in and day out to people who care about what they have to say. And that’s a CPM you couldn’t put a price on.

The importance of teaching

mediamum — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 03:54:05 +0000

In Australia I spent a heck of a lot of money on educating my four fantastic children. It won’t surprise many that as an educator, and someone who got her post-secondary education ‘the freaking toughest way you’d ever decide to’, education is my priority. It’s what I do. It’s really my life.

As a full-time teacher at Granville TAFE, my favourite times have been at TAFE graduations, watching refugee immigrants to Australia graduating with a TAFE qualification, and the pride they have with even the youngest of their families in suits, to see dad or mum graduate with their diploma. It’s about so much more than the qualification – for the parents as well as the kids. And I sincerely miss it more than I can say.

In Australia we live in a lovely semi-rural environment. To get access to the education I wanted for our children I made sacrifices. I’m not just talking about not taking holidays. I mean taking my own cut lunches to work, not buying coffees at cafes, working outside of the home even though caring for four children is more than a full-time job in itself - real middle class stuff that means giving my kids an education I wanted them to have. Even then, however, I had issues. Teachers cutting corners. Not doing the job I wanted. A few times I was forced into a dialogue with the principal about issues that never should have arisen.

So we moved to Boulder. I have been asked a few times how I started with making such a big move. Well, the first thing I did was check out the schools.

Before anything else, I checked out how the school system worked and found the best school for our children. THEN when that was decided, I looked for the house. (Which is basically next door to the school – WIN).

And after nearly a school year at Bear Creek Elementary, I have to say I have never, ever seen educators like this – even through paying an exorbitant amount in Australia. Literally.

Our children are thriving in an environment which is supportive, works with families and absolutely and unequivocally wants kids to succeed. When I meet with my kids’ teachers, I am regularly brought to an emotional state (insert *embarrassing try-to-hold-back-tears-moments here). Their care and concern for my children is so touching it makes me want to be a better parent every single time – to keep track with their own concern. (And hey, I’m already a pretty awesome mum.)

And it makes me want to be a better educator at college level too. I want to help other people reach beyond their comfort zone. To find their feet. To get confident. To look at their futures with anticipation – not trepidation.

I want to be the teacher that my kids have here in the US. Bear Creek Elementary in South Boulder is an incredible foundation of learning for children that I am so grateful for. My kids are thriving in the US – not thinking of academically, (although that’s fine too) but in confidence and strength of personality. Bear Creek’s teachers and principal and support staff are incredible. My family has benefitted directly from everything you do. And I learn from you. And even I gain confidence from you. Thank you so much.

Getting beyond "Do you want fries with that?"

mediamum — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 01:11:12 +0000

So now the can of worms is opened. As expected, newspapers are closing. Many print journalists are inexplicably in shock. Their next paid employment may well include the words, “do you want fries with that?”

And that, truly, is devastating.

But we still have new people entering schools, wanting to be journalists. Play with me here:

Let’s say we have a new intake this year. They’ll be trusting us for the next four years to prepare them for employment. Beyond fast food. And so the question for educators is specific. What are the best journalism schools teaching now? What should they be teaching?

Be specific! I’m not interested in opinions that simply state “they need to be prepared for the web.”

Here’s a few of my views. We need to:

a. Teach the very real and vital aspects of the role of journalism, its values and role.

b. Equip students with these values as paramount, above and beyond the role of the media they work in. We need them to see the media they work within never compromises or changes their values as journalists.

c. Move away from teaching print media with a concentration on newspapers as the standard, and instead move towards the web as the standard media format.

d. Continue to teach content creation for broadcast and radio, and print magazines. And equip every student for a start in any of those formats.

e. In their first semester, teach students about the real possibilities of independent blogging, microblogging, podcasting and vlogging and insist they do all of them.

f. Instill in them all an awareness and practice of newsgathering and research in a new media environment.

What do you disagree with? What is missing?

Research on Twitter and friendships

mediamum — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 00:07:56 +0000

I’m a grad research student focusing on social media for my final thesis. So it’s time for me to move on from boobs to my next adventure. (I know, I know… we loved the boobs.)

Anyway, my next project will be on relationship/friendship/connection strength on Twitter. My impression is that the strength of the ‘relationships’ (for want of a better word) forged on Twitter is as strong (if not more so) as those which are begun in real life.

These Twitter relationships, built over time in 140 characters or less, lead people to expressing genuine concern for other members of the community, both on Twitter as well as leading to IRL. This genuine concern leads to things such as offers of employment; support during times of grief, stress and celebration; connections for people who find it more difficult to connect in real life due to shyness or geography; and probably heaps more.

I’d love to gain a pile of Twitterers who would be willing to help me with this research paper. I would imagine it would just involve an in-depth survey where I ask you some questions. This could definitely be done online and before you answered it I’d like you to think about the connections you have made on Twitter, how important to you they are, and what sort of level of concern you have for the others. Consider things like do you think of yourself as part of a community? A family? How many strong connections you have? etc. Your responses would be completely anonymous.

If you’re willing to be involved, just comment below with your Twitter name and I’ll let you know when it’s ready to go – probably in about 2 or 3 weeks time. Alternatively, DM me on Twitter (@mediamum)!

A visit to the A pool

mediamum — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 15:32:45 +0000

Following my previous post about unhappily swimming in the B Pool, I’m pleased to have been able to scramble my way through to a bit of a splash in the A pool. You know, that place where the cool kids are?

My final paper for Media Ethics, Twittering a Funeral: Social media’s challenge to professional journalism received a final A grade. I think my professor was just as relieved and pleased about it as I am.

I’ll be working on the paper further to prepare it for possible conference/journal submission, under the intuitive guidance of Professor Mike McDevitt. Without his assistance in structuring my paper all the stuff in my head would still be struggling for a voice.

Anyway, I’ll happily send it along to anyone who’d like the long, academic version. Just email me or DM me on Twitter. But for those of you with lives not academically focused, here are the key points:

Statement of Purpose
This paper examines the impact on the professionalism of journalism as it integrates the social networking tool Twitter in traditional news reporting. The paper considers the use of Twitter by the Rocky Mountain News in which a child’s funeral was “live blogged,” as well as the ensuing outcry and response from the editor, John Temple. It identifies the particular characteristics of Twitter as a communication tool, and proposes an ethical model which supports the use of Twitter in professional journalism.

The paper then outlines the case study of the Rocky Mountain News’ reporting of a child’s funeral using Twitter, and identifies why this use was not only unethical but a case of unprofessional journalism. This is journalism which doesn’t address the recommendations of the Hutchins Commission, and puts the autonomy of American journalists, as well as their credibility, in the firing line. There is a desperate need for reporters to be trained in the functionality of Twitter and fully understand it as well as the community (not audience) which supports it.

I recommend a model which outlines three ways Twitter should not be used, as well as three ways in which it supports professional journalism.
NO:

1. When the use of Twitter (either through implementing the tool or the result) is perceived as a possible invasion of privacy.

2. When another journalistic tool would better serve the reporting need or the ability of the journalist.

3. When a journalist or media entity is unfamiliar with social media in its complete form, not just as a broadcast medium.

YES:

1. As a resource for newsgathering purposes, in preparing information for stories, getting leads, etc.

2. As a public journalism tool – where the journalist can attend an event and act as the mediator between the community and the event. Eg: a red carpet event, where the community can ask the journalist questions and she can filter them and respond accordingly (of course, this takes a different sort of journalistic training.)

3. For Amber Alerts (abducted children), especially when the child is suspected to have been abducted overseas; and for issues of imminent need or notice such as natural disasters, etc. The input would come from reliable sources, and media would then be able to aid in important efforts to communicate with the respectability of their professional branding adding weight to the message going out through the Twitter stream.

I hope the A pool welcomes me back a few more times. It’s really nice.

Vilification is not okay, even if it's accepted vernacular

mediamum — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 03:40:40 +0000

During my final 12 months in Australia, a disturbing language fad happened in the youth I was teaching at college. It was also demonstrated across all youth, because I saw it in my own children.

The use of the word gay to describe something negative. Anything negative. Was gay. “That’s so gay.” “He’s so gay.” “That game’s gay.”

The real meaning was that gay was a reject. It was bad. It was unacceptable.

That’s vilification. It’s a representation of bigotry.

And even though most people saying it weren’t intending to be supporting of any of those horrible, closed minded sentiments, they were still saying it. And as such, they were keeping the flame alive.

So I decided that even though it was a rampant part of the youth vernacular, I didn’t have to accept it. So I outlawed this use of it in my classroom. And it had very real effect.

I told them all. Every class. If you use that term in that way, you’re out of my classroom. And then I explained why.

It caused a little stir, but it worked. They found other ways to express themselves, and it brought to light the fact that we all have responsibility for the language we use, and even if we don’t intend to offend… we can and often do. And that’s problematic for all of us in a society.

So now I’m in the US and I’m finding the same situation exists with the word “retard”. Just throw it in wherever gay was thrown in and you get the picture.

So I’m taking the same stance. I won’t accept this. Not in my friends, my kids… even my Twitter friends. And I’m calling on you to join with me in this. Let’s stamp this vilification out. Just as it’s unacceptable to say the “N word” in the USA to refer to people, I’d love it to be the case to see it as unacceptable to use the “R word” to refer to anyone or anything at all.

Some of our community are intellectually disabled. That doesn’t make them “R word” in the sense it’s being used by the broader community – it just gives them extra challenges. If you decide to segment these people into a less important stereotype, then you will completely miss out on the fact that people with those challenges are admirable and often inspirational in the way they take on the world. Their stories will often bring you to earth with a crash.

So will you join me? Will you consciously stamp the “r word” out of your vocabulary? Will you commit to telling those around you not to use it in your presence? Let’s join forces. No word is bigger than the people behind the vocabulary.

No related posts.

Learning how citizen journalism works

mediamum — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 03:50:22 +0000

What is the difference between citizen journalism and traditional media?

That’s the question BlogWorld & New Media Expo, being held in Las Vegas from Sept 19 to 21, 2008, seems to not know the answer to.

Billed as the world’s largest blogging and new media conference, BlogWorld is holding a one-day workshop for citizen journalists.

Great!

While I don’t want to offend anyone with my own opinions on this, I felt pretty offended by what followed. Looking through the program overview, it appears that to be taken seriously as a citizen journalist, you need to be trained by traditional journalists. After all, as the site says, “Traditional media has tried to learn from the blogs… Now it’s time for the bloggers and other new media journalists to mine the history, tradition and most importantly, the knowledge base of traditional journalists.”

Simply part with $350 and you too will be able to be trained by four out of five people who don’t actually practice citizen journalism… or that even have blogs. In fact, upon looking through their bio’s which are linked in the speaker profiles, only one of them (the same one) actually has any relationship with Web 2.0 at all.

And at the end, you’ll get a certificate which you can have on paper, or for those ‘new media’ types, in a web badge format! What a bargain!

I’m sure that Norg and allvoices will be searching out for cit j’s with accreditation offered by BlogWorld. Nope. Maybe it will make me feel more ‘professional’ or make me more ‘influential’ or add to my branding?

I really don’t think so.

Getting trained by old media journalists and academics who work in a model which is failing to profit doesn’t reflect the demands of journalism of the 21^st century. If I had $350 to spend, it wouldn’t be here. But I’m sure many will.

Monetizing citizen journalism… at last someone’s worked out how to do it. Thanks BlogWorld!

Vale Randy Pausch: Decide if You're Tigger or Eeyore

mediamum — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 01:11:00 +0000

After the passing of an inspirational man, Professor Randy Pausch, I’ve decided to write a number of posts on what struck me in his Last Lecture. If you haven’t seen this lecture, I wholeheartedly recommend getting a cup of tea, and taking an hour to watch it. Then watch it again a week later. There are myriad messages in it.

The thing that teared me up with this lecture was this statement: Decide if You’re Tigger or Eeyore. How do you go through life? Randy says he has fun. The Dean at the university asked him to ensure he told people to have fun, and he says it was like asking a fish to talk about water. He knew no other way.

I found real resonance with that. Just like Randy, if you meet me IRL you kinda know which way I lean – I’m Tigger.

As I discovered last semester, for some stuff I simply don’t know how to be anything other than Tigger. My personal relationships, my work and teaching - for the most part I’m Tigger. Joy of Life, that’s me.

One student challenged me to be “normal” for just one class. She believed it wasn’t possible. She was right. Why? Because I don’t know what “normal” is! I really tried, too!

Even the (very quiet, sedate) dentist commented last week “You are always so enthusiastic, it’s really catching.” Then this week when we saw him again, he was almost bouncy himself. (Admittedly, that was a little scary.)

I figure hey, why be gloomy or even just emotionless and methodical in anything you do? If you find the fun in stuff, then doesn’t that rub off? Even if it’s not inherently a fun activity? For example, there’s nothing more fun than squashing the recycling with my 8-year-old to try and fit it in the bin.

But sometimes I have put conditions on my enthusiasm. And that sucks.

When we first launched our startup in Australia, I was the fish-wife. I complained every step. Eight years later, it has (touch wood) been doing great here, but I really didn’t help it along. I lacked the vision and the faith, and instead felt the fear.

There is security in fear. It’s calm and reliable being Eeyore.

Now we’re going to the US, I’m exactly the opposite. And there are many reasons for that, which another post will explore. But it’s not because I feel a greater sense of security. With a start-up you can do everything right - in fact, better than right - and still have it fail.

I’m positive about it because I’m finding my security elsewhere and choosing to not be fearful. I’m not Eeyore. It’s a choice, just as Randy said, “Decide if you’re Tigger or Eeyore.”

It’s when you let go of fear that you get the vision. Tigger has vision.

Just us Talking: When should kids get to decide for themselves?